Dear everybody, 
Please, read this email carefully. 

As all of you know, after the message from the provost last week the Department is giving the option of switching to remote teaching for classes with a certain number of positive cases. Days are getting complicated and there are multiple opinions on how to deal with COVID cases in the classroom. 

As GTFF steward I attended the emergency E-Council to understand what is happening. In yesterday’s meeting we voted for possible collective actions, being one of the most important “to backup and protect individual GE actions/requests” (and I quoted from the meeting minutes). 
Tomorrow (Wednesday at 5pm) there is a GMM to vote for concrete actions. Please, show up there and share your opinion. 
The GTFF take on this topic is to pressure the UO to make changes for the health and safety of all workers and students. Tomorrow’s GMM will focus on voting concrete actions. If you cannot be there, please, send me an email with your opinion, suggestions or concerns and I will bring it to the table. My vote is ALWAYS the result of the consensus among RL GEs perspectives. I cannot predict your opinions, so please, share it with me. 

**Just to clarify before tomorrow’s and Thursday’s meetings the union is here to help GEs in the case the department is NOT granting the remote option to instructors who request it. That is why I mentioned in the email yesterday that ideally you will CC the GTFF stewards and union organizer to help the union understand the number of approved requests.**

As President of the RLGSA I remind you that we will have our first Open Meeting this Thursday at 2pm on. I highly encourage you to come to the meeting because we will touch base with all of you on those matters. 
The first part of the meeting will focus on the GTFF actions. I plan on spending more time than usual sharing what I learnt from the GTFF meetings this week. I will also ask you to vote to decide what to do in a departamental level. And I would like to hear more about your thoughts on this. 

*Remember that RLGSA board members (RL department) and GTFF stewards (University/workers level) are GE representatives, and we do not make our own decisions without gathering everybody’s opinions. We create collective voices that help eliminate certain concerns through actions.*

Thank you for your time and energy. I am here to help so do not hesitate to contact me or any member of the board. 
I hope to see most of you for the Open Meeting on Thursday.